A Frog in My Basement

One hour later, after doing the strangest techniques I had ever seen or done, I again told Joe the story of Kizzy.  This time I still felt somewhat sad, but I also felt as if a great and awful burden had been lifted from me.  I remembered fully what had happened, but I realized I had let go of the guilt and crushing grief that had gone hand-in-hand with the memory! 

My trained therapeutic mind scanned my knowledge base for information that would explain how this change could have occurred in such a short time.  I know that talking about painful feelings can sometimes ease them. But this was different.  I didn’t feel “desensitized” to the sad story.  That wasn’t it. The story and the emotions were still very present for me.  It was the guilt and crushing grief that had not only changed – they were gone!  Even though I still had complete memory of the event, I was unable to bring back the grief and pain.  How had this happened?  Could it be true?  I tried over and over again to bring back the tears – but only the memories remained. I was still sad over what had happened, but I was no longer in pain. I felt as if a great weight had been lifted from me.

I didn’t understand that this was more than just a new therapeutic tool.  I couldn’t have guessed that God was using Joe to deliver the slap upside my head that would set all of the weird things that would soon follow into motion. I only knew that this was a powerful and wonderful “thing” and that I had to find out more. 

Joe opened up a wondrous window for me that autumn afternoon.  It soon became a door through which amazing experiences, my own and my clients’, would begin to pour. But even without this knowledge of the future, I was extremely excited about having this effective and powerful tool with which to help my clients.   

The technique Joe taught me that day was developed by Gary Craig and is called the Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT for short.  I ordered the home study course, watched the videos, read the manual, listened to the tapes and set out to help people in a wonderful new way.   I was introduced to an entirely new area of healing and I just couldn’t get enough of it. 

EFT is one of many very effective techniques that fall under the general title of Energy Psychology or Energy Medicine.  (A more complete list of techniques and links to information about them are included in the reference section of this book.)  As I began to use Energy Psychology techniques in my practice, I was continually in awe as I saw how much faster people were able to change.  Their healing process was so much easier.  Phobias seemed to disappear before my eyes.  I watched as waves of relief washed over clients.  Then I listened with wonder as they explained that their pain was gone.

I continued to study everything about Energy Psychology that I could get my hands on.  I joined an Energy Psychology supervision group in which we discussed cases, different techniques and how to use them most effectively.   I attended workshops and conferences. I began to develop an understanding of the principals of energy psychology, vibration, the power of focus, attraction and manifestation.  The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn.

Unfortunately, (or perhaps not), along with my increased knowledge and awareness came strangeness.  Odd and sometimes bizarre things began to happen to me.  The more I allowed myself to know about Energy Psychology and to believe in the healing power of these techniques, the stranger things became.

At first I kept my experiences tucked tightly inside my respectability vest.  I was terrified of telling the truth about the weird and strange “things” that were happening to me.